Good night Guru. I am sure we all had a great time. It will hopefully be even better when it becomes the Trans-Atlantic S2S event. Just imagine what it will be like when the sunspot cycle moves on a few years. I hope to be here to witness it.

It would be very interesting to investigate this possible propagation difference between the two sides of the Atlantic

If this were true, and there was a relatively balanced number of EU vs NA activating participants, neither side would have an advantage anyway - whether you are hearing better or whether you are being heard better, both sides must hear to complete the QSO. FWIW, I never felt that I was hearing better than the Europeans I was calling on Saturday.

Another FWIW: neither VE2DDZ nor I were spotted a SINGLE time by a European RBN node on Saturday so not sure about the tongue-in-cheek theory of EU to NA being uphill and NA to EU being downhill.

The only reason one side can have an advantage is if the other side is in significantly greater numbers and therefore you have more opportunities for s2s.

If this were true, and there was a relatively balanced number of EU vs NA activating participants, neither side would have an advantage anyway - whether you are hearing better or whether you are being heard better, both sides must hear to complete the QSO.

So many other things come in to consideration if comparing propagation in each direction;
does one end have a lower noise floor?
does one end run more power? (possible alligator effect).
does one end of the QSO have a better antenna (although in principal this ought to help on both Tx and Rx).

All the variables make activating more interesting.

I would probably have done better had I stayed longer on the summit however both my ladies (the wife and the dog) were getting bored and wanted to return home and the summit was filling up with mountain bikers! It was a nice late afternoon out with them in any case. Now to go and repair the broken mast base …

The suggestion of us getting some extra value out of the day was purely down to Paul G4MD (G6GGP). He suggested that we “warm up” on a summit during the morning in readiness for the main event in the afternoon. The only downside for me would be that the first event would inevitably take some of my battery capacity, but I estimated that with careful management I would be able to run for around 4 hours on the second summit.

With the two summits accessed from a single point, we would operate from separate summits and swap over after lunch back at the car. We arrived at the coll to find all the best parking spots occupied, so we had to park on the verge which was very soft and deeply rutted. Thankfully we were using Paul’s Land Rover for this outing which has much superior ground clearance to my Quattro so this was not an issue.

With an easy walk of around 2.4 kilometres and 170 metres of ascent, I enjoyed the walk which is initially steep, but once on the top it is very easy. For much of the ascent I could see Paul climbing his hill across the valley. I reached the highest point on the track at 07:56z and before setting up gave Paul a call on our usual talkback frequency of 433.550MHz. He had already arrived on his summit and so the first S2S of the day was in the bag:

The set up on Mynydd Llangorse GW/SW-015 with Mynydd Troed GW/SW-009 in the background

After setting up, I decided to operate on 10MHz CW, setting the FT-857D to 10 watts to minimise the battery drain. It took a number of calls to get a response and then the caller promptly disappeared. Knowing there had been a coronal event, I feared the worst and I was not greatly encouraged when Jack OH3GZ called me. The reports were not our usual 599 each way. Indeed, contacts were slow in coming and there were only 6 made on the band, though 3 of them were S2S:

Moving to 20m at 09:05z, I managed just 2 more contacts on CW, one of which was an S2S:

Ivica 9A6CW/P on Sveti Jure 9A/DH-007.

My final session was on 432MHz SSB. After self-spotting and then calling in all directions produced no response until Paul called me once more. We decided that it was time to move on, but as usual I couldn’t resist a few more calls on the band and this produced contacts with Stewart G0LGS and Matt 2E0MDJ. So just a total of 12 contacts for the activation including the two with Paul.

After meeting for lunch, we set off for our second summit. It was now rather warm and I had to take several stops to cool down… and let runners past as there was a race now taking with part of the route going over the two summits. This summit is only just over a kilometre from the parking spot, but has 260m of ascent. I was at the trig by 11:30z and a few minutes later took a call from Paul for the first S2S from this one.

After setting up I quickly found Juerg HB9BIN/P (still on Wurz) so gave him a call. Moving up to my usual frequency of 14.064MHz and setting the rig to 50 watts out brought an immediate response from Les K4DY. Signals appeared to be quite good, so I was encouraged. There were a lot of gaps between calls after an initial run of 5 contacts and with calls coming from European chasers I decided to drop the power to 10 watts. Ironically I then picked up 3 European S2S contacts and Rich N4EX.

Checking the spots I saw Kevin AC2KL was on SSB. I moved up band and found that I could copy him, but he was not really strong enough to work. This suggested CW was the better mode to be on for a bit of S and P. It was approaching 13:00z and I found Evan KN3O who was 529, but unfortunately he couldn’t hear me and I was not successful in making contact with him before he went QRT to go to work. So near yet so far!

I set up the VFOs on the 857D for the SSB and CW sections of 20m and checked the SSB section to find Kevin AC2KL was now strong enough to work – 41 both ways. I called Paul on the talkback frequency, but Paul was not copying Kevin as well as I was. Later on I copied Kevin at 53. A combination of S and P and the occasional call on CW netted me further S2S contacts, with Barry N1EU in the log at 13:33z. I kept checking the spots and heard copyable signals from the VE6 guys at 13:48z, but their frequency 14.047MHz was soon swamped by a contest station.

The S and P approach picked up an S2S with Neil GW0WPO/P. I listened for Mark NK8Q at 14:22z and could copy his callsign, but little else. In hindsight I should have called him, but I decided to carry on with 50 watts for a while and monitor his frequency. Unfortunately conditions between us got worse rather than better. Another might have been. In the mix of S and P and calling on 14.064MHz, Les KG3W made my log at 14:42z to give me my third fixed station across the pond. Further S2S contacts included one with Jordan MW3TMX/P on 144MHz which gave me time to stretch my legs.

At 15:00z I could copy Malcolm VE2DDZ very well at 529, but there was another station on the frequency and my calls were not copied over in Canada. Shortly afterwards, I saw a spot for Pete WA7JTM who should have been workable with some effort, but I couldn’t break through his pile up, most of which I could copy. In the hope of picking up some of his chasers, I moved up a little and called. I was surprised to work Allan GW4VPX and then Les K4DY called in to give me an updated report of 579. He was now 599 with me. After another contact and a lot of calling, I decided on S and P again which picked up another 3 S2S, one being on 144MHz.

At 15:45z, I called Paul to see how he was getting on to find that things had ground to a halt at his end. We therefore decided to call it a day and get off home. My battery capacity had almost expired, so this seemed to be the sensible thing to do.

Overall conditions were very variable. There was a lot of QRN and thunder crashes at my end, but there were only a few drops of rain. QSB seemed to be slow on DX signals and more rapid on those from closer stations. I am certain that I got the better deal on the day and that Mynydd Troed has a superior take off which gave me the edge over Paul. However, we are going to undertake an extended joint activation at some point to enable us to compare our set ups.

Once again I really enjoyed the event and the weather was absolutely brilliant. I am certainly looking forward to the next one in late September or October. As has been suggested, we should call the next one the Trans-Atlantic S2S event. Many thanks to everyone who took part in this one.

Hi Barry,
I understand your point. Europe is big enough as to experience openings at different times. You probably copied European stations from areas more in the East and Norht than I am in at earlier times.
I wasn’t in the summit early as to check how signals from NorthAmerica like yours, for instance, were coming at those early hours, but I didn’t do it because I had already noticed on the days before that conditions to NorthAmerica were building for me at about 17h utc and earlier than that, signals were not passing through to me.
Surely the story was different for SV, LZ, YO, HA, SP, who are much more to the East in in most of the cases to the North than I am on.
Maybe we all share the same local time in most of the European Countries but longitud and latitude play a key role on how and when propagation conditions builds. Hence de differences in times of us working NA DX.
Now off to get back to work.
Hope to be able to continue with this discussions.
73,

Well Malen there’s no other course of action - you will have to give up work!

For years I have coped with early starts on SOTA outings, 02:30 local being a typical roll-out-of-the-sack time. I rarely get to bed before 23:30 anyway, so sleep is always limited before SOTA outings and I usually wake before the alarm. Departure at 03:00 will get Paul (G4MD) and myself up into Scotland for 09:00 or so and we have managed a few hills before driving to our overnight stay. No use driving back after two summits when it is a 750 mile round trip! The following day, we will usually be on our way to a summit before 07:00 local - well we have to get value for money!

This is a basic representation of the way I see the magic of our tiny QRP signals traveling very long distances like they did last Saturday. It illustrates why there’s a certain window or time slot, entirely Sun-position dependant, in which DX is possible. No earlier and no later than that exact moment.
When the Sun has been sending his in these days weak ionizing stuff for a number of hours around noon, the F1 layer appears up making possible the signal reflections between F2 and F1 layers with little attenuation.
Other QRP signals bouncing once on one of the F layers, either F1 or F2 and then touching ground or ocean water, will suffer much higher attenuation and possible will not get strong enough after those bounces on the planet Earth (ground or water).